The Republic of Virtue

In Year One, the month of Vintage , time began. Fog hovered above the earth, like an emanation Of spirits underground. The scents of rose water Sprinkled on sawdust, bird lime, blood, and fungus Commingled in the air, like a chimera Exhaled from broken mouths. The word Virtue Rumbled above the roar of distant cannon Like muffled drums, drowning our lamentations. Nude women promenaded down the streets As the Marquis de Sade stepped blearily from prison To raucous cheers. On crumbling balustrades We fired guns and wept like communicants. Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains, Declared Rousseau. To break the Social Contract And signify a city stripped of saints, The twelve months were reborn, the weeks transfigured To decades of ten days. Without a Sabbath To toll the bells, a shining new Republic Of Virtue was proclaimed. De-christened streets Wore names of heroes. One Easter Sunday morning, De Sade lured a young beggar named Rose Keller To his chateau and bound her there in chains, Enacting scenes he’d first composed in prison In Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue , Till, slipping her restraints, the girl escaped. Revolutions, my friend, are not made out of rose water, Cried Danton, as The Committee of Public Safety Sent spies among the crowd to sniff complaints. Addressing fellow citizens as Ladies Could lead to steps where other traps were sprung And heads sent rolling.  If virtue be the spring Of government in peace , roared Robespierre,  The spring of government in revolution Is virtue joined with terror . In Thermidor, The month of Heat, his words rolled to their term Among piled corpses. Women doused the ground With rose water, as choirs of children cheered, Rags pressed against their mouths to blunt the odor. For  Terror is only justice, prompt, severe And inflexible; it is then an emanation Of virtue . On the streets renamed for saints Of the Revolution, we celebrate Feast Days Named Virtue , Genius , Labor , Payments , Reason . From Fog to Fruit , we watch the months revolve To Thermidor again. We watch our tongues And sniff the air for portents. In strange seasons, Counting our numbered days. Thinking If the spring Of government in peace be virtue , terror Lurks at the crossroads, smiling, suave, severe. An aging libertine, extending terms To beggar girls. Exacting in return For martyred flesh, the spirit’s liberation. In Declarations born of blood and tears.